Dragons and Hobbits Before Bedtime
by Child of Hermes
Summary: It's bedtime for Hamish Watson-Holmes and he wants he parents to read him The Hobbit. Parentlock. John Watson/Sherlock Holmes. Johnlock


**I don't own Sherlock or The Hobbit or any of the characters. The sections from The Hobbit are in italics.**

"Alright my little hobbit, time for bed." Said John to his seven-year-old son, Hamish Watson-Holmes. He went into the little boy's bedroom, which used to be his before he had married Sherlock. Hamish jumped up off the bed and grabbed a book from the bookshelf near the window, before jumping back onto his bed.

"Read, daddy!" Hamish held out the book for John to take. "Please, please, please, please!"

John chuckled at his son, "Yes, yes alright, but only if you promise to go to sleep as soon as I finish." He sat down on the bed next to Hamish and picked up the book, "_The Hobbit_? You want to continue it?"

"Yes! We were just about to meet the dragon!" Hamish cried out happily, he snuggled into his dad's side.

"Ah yes, I remember." John got comfortable and began to read.

"_Now I will make you an offer. I have got my ring and will creep this down this very noon-then if ever Smaug ought to be napping—and see what he is up to. Perhaps something will turn up. 'Every worm has his weak spot,' as my father used to say, though I am sure it was not from personal expierence."_

_ Naturally the dwarves accepted the offer eagerly. Already they had come to respect little Bilbo. Now he had begun to have ideas and plans of his own. When midday came he got ready for another journey down into the Mountain. He did not like it of course, but it was not so bad now he knew, more or less, what was in front of him. Had he known more about dragons and their wily ways, he might have been more frightened and less hopeful of catching this one napping._

_ The sun was shining when he started, but it was dark as night in the tunnel. The light from the door, almost closed, soon faded as he went down. So silent was his going that smoke on a gentle wind could hardly have surpassed it, and he was inclined to feel a bit proud of himself as he drew near the lower door. There was only the very faintest glow to be seen. _

_ "Old Smaug is weary and asleep," he thought, "He can't see me and he won't hear me. Cheer up Bilbo!" He had forgotten or had never heard of dragons' sense of smell. It was also an awkward fact that they can keep half an eye open watching while they sleep, if they are suspicious._

_ Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, almost dead and dark, with scarcely a snore more than a whiff of unseen steam, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he caught a sudden thin and piercing ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug's left eye. He was only pretending to sleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance! Hurriedly Bilbo stepped back and blessed the luck of his ring. Then Smaug spoke._

John stopped reading for a second, thinking. "One moment, Hamish." He stood up, book in hand, and called down the stairs, "Sherlock! Come up here!"

The detective came up the stairs, "Yes, John?"

"Come read the dragon's voice in The Hobbit. I think Hamish will enjoy it very much." John whispered. Sherlock smiled and nodded and took the book. The two of them sat on opposite sides of Hamish.

"Papa!" Hamish greeted, "You're going to read to me too?"

"Yes I am Hamish." Said Sherlock before he began to read.

_ "Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare!"_

Sherlock handed the book back to John and he began reading again but letting Sherlock read the dragon whenever they came to him.

_ But Bilbo was not quite so unlearned in dragon-lore as all that, and if Smaug hoped to get him to come nearer so easily he was disappointed. "No thank you, O Smaug the Tremendous!" he replied. "I did not come for presents. I only wished to have a look at you and see if you were truly as great as the tales say. I did not believe them."_

_ "Do you now?" said the dragon some what flattered, even though he did not believe a word of it._

_ "Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality, O Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities," replied Bilbo._

_ "You have nice manners for a thief and a liar," said the dragon, "You seem familiar with my name, but I don't seem to remember smelling you before. Who are you and where do you come from, may I ask?"_

_ "You may indeed! I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen."_

_ "So I can well believe," said Smaug, "but that is hardly your usual name."_

"If you were actually the dragon, Papa, you would have said, 'obvious'." Hamish giggled.

Sherlock laughed, "Indeed I would Hamish."

"Keep reading, daddy!" Hamish said. John smiled and continued.

_ "I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the luck number."_

_ "Lovely titles!" sneered the dragon. "But lucky numbers don't always come off."_

"_I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I cam from the end of bag, but no bag went over me."_

_ "These don't sound so creditable," scoffed Smaug._

"_I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer, and I am Barrel-rider," went on Bilbo beginning to be pleased with his riddling._

_ "That's better!" said Smaug. "But don't let your imagination run away with you!"_

_ This of course was is the way to talk to dragons, if you don't want to reveal your proper name (which is wise), and don't want to infuriate them by a flat refusal (which is also very wise). No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it. There was a lot here which Smaug, did not understand at all (though I expect you do, since you know all about Bilbo's adventures to which he was referring), but he thought he understood enough, and he chuckled in his wicked inside. _

_ "I thought so last night," he smiled to himself. "Lake-men, some nasty scheme of those miserable tub-trading Lake-men, or I'm a lizard. I haven't been down that way in an age and an age; but I will soon alter that." _

_ "Very well, O Barrel-rider!" he said aloud. "Maybe Barrel was our pony's name; and maybe not, though it was fat enough. You may walk unseen, but you did not walk all the way. Let me tell you I ate six ponies last night and I shall catch and eat all the other before long. In return for the excellent meal I will give you on piece of advice for your good: don't have more to do with dwarves than you can help!" _

"Smaug must be almost as clever as you are, Papa, if he figured out all that about Bilbo with Bilbo telling him that exactly." Said Hamish.

"Quite possible Hamish. Maybe I am part dragon." Sherlock said tickling his son. Hamish giggled as John went on reading.

_ "Dwarves!" said Bilbo in pretended surprise._

"_Don't talk to me!" said Smaug. "I know the smell (and taste) of dwarf—no one better. Don't tell me that I can heat a dwarf-ridden pony and not know it! You'll come to a bad end, if you go with such friends, Thief Barrel-rider. I don't mind if you go back and tell them so from me." But he did not tell Bilbo that there was one smell he could not make out at all, hobbit smell; it was quite outside his experience and puzzled him mightily._

_ "I suppose you got a fair price for that cup last night?" he went on. "Come now, did you? Nothing at all! Well that's just like them. And I suppose they are skulking outside, and your job is to do all the dangerous work and get what you can when I'm not looking—for them? And you will get a fair share? Don't believe it! If you get off alive, you will be lucky."_

_ Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug's roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell. But plucking up courage he spoke again._

_ "You don't know everything, O Smaug the Mighty," said he. "Not gold alone brought us hither."_

_ "Ha! Ha! You admit 'us'" laughed Smaug. "Why not say 'us fourteen' and be done with it, Mr Lucky Number? I am pleased to hear that you had other business in these parts besides my gold. In that case you may, perhaps, not altogether wast your time. _

_ "I don't know if it has occurred to you that, even if you could steal the gold bit by bit—a matter of a hundred years or so—you could not get it very far? Not much use on the mountain side? Not much use in the forest? Bless me! Had you never thought of the catch? A fourteenth share, I suppose, or something like it, those terms, eh? But what about delivery? What about cartage? What about armed guards and tolls?" and Smaugh laughed aloud. He had a wicked and wily heart, and he knew his guesses were not far out, though he suspected that the Lake-men were at he back of the plans, and the most of the plunder was mean to stop there at the town by the shore that in his young days had been called Esgaroth._

"Is Smaug going to attack Lake-town?" Hamish asked.

"I don't know." John replied, "I suppose we'll have to find out won't we?"

_You will hardly believe it, but poor Bilbo was really very taken aback. So far all his thoughts and energies had been concentrated on getting to the Mountain and finding the entrance. He had never bothered to wonder how the treasure was to be removed, certainly never how any part of it that might fall to his share was to be brought back to Bag-End Under-Hill._

_ Now a nasty suspicion began to grow in his mind—had the dwarves forgotten this important point too, or were they laughing in their sleeves at him all the time? That is the effect of dragon-talk has on the inexperienced. Bilbo of course ought to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality._

"Ha! Almost just like you, Sherlock." John laughed.

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult." Sherlock said honestly. "But I do not find it funny."

"I'm just joking." John laughed again, "You know I love you." Hamish nudged his dad impatiently. Wanting him to continue reading.

_ "I tell you," he said, in an effort to remain loyal to his friends and to keep his end up, "that gold was only an after thought with us. We came over hill and under hill, by wave and wind, for Revenge. Surely, O Smaug the unassessably wealthy, you must realize that your success has made you some bitter enemies?"_

_ Then Smaug really did laugh—a devastating sound which shook Bilbo to the floor, while far up in the tunnel the dwarves huddled together and imagined that the hobbit had come to a sudden and a nasty end._

_ "Revenge!" he snorted, and the light of his eyes lit the all from floor to ceiling like scarlet lightning. "Revenge! The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!" he gloated. "My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws are spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"_

"Smaug likes to boast a lot doesn't he?" Hamish commented.

"_I have always understood," said Bilbo in a frightened squeak, "that dragons are softer underneath, especially in the region of the—er—chest; but doubtless one so fortified has thought of that."_

_ The dragon stopped short in his boasting. "Your information is antiquated," he snapped. "I am armoured above and below with iron scales and hard gems. No blade can pierce me."_

_ "I might have guessed it," said Bilbo. "Truly there can nowhere be found the equal of Lord Smaug the Impenetrable. What magnificence to posses a waistcoat of fine diamonds!"_

_ "Yes, it is rare and wonderful, indeed." Said Smaug absurdly pleased. He did not know that the hobbit had already caught a glimpse of his peculiar under-covering on his previous visit, and was itching for a closer view for reasons of his own. The dragon rolled ofver. "Look!" he said. "What do you say to that?"_

_ "Dazzlingly marvelous! Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!" exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but what he though inside was: "Old fool! Why there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!" _

_ After he had seen that Mr Baggins' one idea was to get away. "Well, I really must not detain Your Magnificence any longer," he said, "or keep your from much needed rest. Ponies take some catching, I believe, after a long start. And so do burglars," he added as a parting shot, as he darted back and fled up the tunnel._

_ It was an unfortunate remark, for the dragon spouted terrific flames after him, and fast though he sped up the slope, he had not nearly gone far enough to be comfortable before the ghastly head of Smaug was thrust against the opening behind. Luckily the whole head and jaws could not squeeze in, but the nostrils sent forth fire and vapour to pursue him, and he was nearly overcome, and stumbled blindly on in great pain and fear. He had been feeling rather pleased with the cleverness of his conversation with Smaug, but his mistake at the end shook him into better sense._

_ "Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became his favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb. "You aren't nearly through this adventure yet," he added, and that was pretty true as well._

"Well I think that's enough for tonight." Said John yawning.

"No!" Hamish protested but he was yawning.

"Yes I think so." Sherlock agreed. The husbands tucked in their son and kissed his forehead.

"Goodnight, my little hobbit." John said as the two of them left the room and shut off the light.

"I believe it's time for the two of us to go to bed too." Sherlock stated. John agreed, "Well then come, my dear Barrel-rider, let us go to bed."

"Yes, let's, my dragon." Said John and the two of them went to their own room to sleep.


End file.
